X-23: Deadly Regenesis #4

[Ambaryerno]

The issue opens with the preview. Laura is being sent on missions for Kimura, but we quickly learn that Laura is subverting her orders.

On this particular mission she stages a struggle with her target, throwing him into the camera drone that Kimura has following her to destroy it. Laura cuts herself and uses her blood to fake her target's murder, ordering him to lay low until she can bring Kimura down. At debriefing it's revealed that this is tactic Laura has been using since Kimura has put her back in the field. Laura declares it's because Kimura's equipment is substandard...while standing there with two parallel cuts across her forearm (which Kimura appears to notice).

On downtime, Laura reaches out to Haymaker, who is working a bag with Kingpin's face taped to it. Laura muses she thought they would have been using hers, but Jordan acknowledges her claims that Fisk was the one who ordered their brother's murder as she claimed. But that still doesn't let her off the hook in their eyes. Jordan fully believes that Kimura has their best interests at heart, so rejects Laura's attempts to convince him that she can't be trusted. Kimura, eavesdropping on the conversation and wary of Laura turning Jordan against her, breaks up their conversation with another mission.

Laura is sent to raid a shipping container, and THIS time they've hacked into the storage area's security feed so Laura can't break contact. Jordan is in mission control this time, and is confused when Laura DOESN'T kill the guards, and instead subdues them. She successfully gets through security and breaks into the container, discovering it houses a laboratory of some sort, with a woman working with some sort of chemical. Despite the cameras watching, Laura is so reminded of her mother (though the woman doesn't resemble Sarah at all) that she can't bring herself to kill her, even with Kimura watching. So instead she snatches the test tube from her hands and makes her escape. Throughout the mission, Kimura and Burnham discuss the Boss's pending arrival. Their plane has just landed, and they're en route via car.

Back at mission control, Kimura is seething that Laura didn't kill either the guard or the scientist. Laura points out that her mission was to secure the test tube, NOT to kill the scientist. She retrieved the tube, thus the mission was successful. Kimura punishes Laura by shooting a random guard in the face after first threatening Burnham, and Haymaker is shocked at Kimura's callousness. But there's no time for them to begin questioning whether Laura was right about Kimura after all. The Boss has arrived, and wants to see both of them.

Laura and Jordan are taken to a room where they are introduced to the Kingpin, who is happy to see X-23 again.

----

The first couple issues were kind of slow, but #4 starts to get things moving again. I especially loved seeing Kaden Nixon again (I think this is the first time she's appeared in ANY capacity since the second NYX miniseries) though either her powers have evolved/she's learned how to apply them differently, (in NYX she creates a time bubble around HERSELF, not around others) or Schultz just didn't have a firm grasp on how they worked. It's also kind of weird that Laura would have the strong reaction she did to the woman in the container, despite her not looking all that much like her mother (if anything she looked more like Jean Grey). I guess it was the lab coat and test tube that did it?

I'm presuming that Kimura was also just playing along with Laura not actually killing her targets. Kimura may be cocky, but she was never STUPID, and it's hard to believe that Laura could so bald-facedly lie to her face while clearly suffering from a self-inflicted wound without her picking up on it (she certainly seemed to be looking right at the claw marks in Laura's arm).

Obviously, the big reveal of the issue is Kingpin, and this is a case where it sucks that solicits come out so far in advance. We've known that Fisk was the one who would be pulling Kimura's strings for months, now, so it lessens the impact of his appearance in this issue. This is especially unfortunately because I've wanted to see Laura and Fisk reunite for a while, especially since the end of Orphans of X: Laura's self-assigned mission to bring down everyone who used her to kill left a pretty big white-suited elephant in the room, and it would have seemed logical that she and Kingpin would be on a collision course. Sadly, Marvel being Marvel there's NO WAY they would allow someone like Laura to have a run at one of their biggest A-List villains, so perhaps using a flashback is a way to address that part of her history without it affecting things in the present day.

We're also finally getting some development for Haymaker, who frankly has been a non-entity despite the fight in the second issue. It's obvious now that they're going to put aside their differences with Laura to bring down Fisk, but all in all I've not been impressed with them. There was some potential but I feel it's been squandered by making them honestly kind of dumb by falling for Kimura's crap.

The art remains a mixed bag. There's not a great deal of sense of movement, which is unfortunate when fights call for something more dynamic.

Schulz's writing of Laura is still passable. But considering just how BADLY Laura has been handled over the past decade, it's pretty damn sad that "passable" can be such a huge improvement.

Overall, the series main flaw is its decision to fill in blanks during a time where no real blanks needed to be filled in. Something in the present day, especially with Kingpin, could have been more interesting and meaningful. It also returns us to one of the biggest problems Laura has: She has no real Rogues Gallery or supporting cast. The fact that Haymaker hasn't been mentioned prior to this series strongly suggests he's not going to make it through.

But it's still better than how Laura has been used in any other book of the Krakoa era, so that's something.

[Rakurai]

The biggest problem with this series is, that in this issue I felt like prologue just finished and main series is starting. And yet, we only have one issue left. I do enjoy art and flashback series, but it would be way better with 10 issue series, not 5.

It was indeed great to see Kiden again, I'd love to see her reunion with Laura and how she feels about Krakoa. Even if her powers are off visually. And yeah, I feel like Kimura plays a game with Laura due to her being off limits with Kingpin.
It's interesting that this series are going on now, when Kingpin is on Krakoa. It feels like the great opportunity for them to meet again, in present times, so of course it won't happen, not with one Laura being in X-Force and other being Synchs girlfriend.

As for scientist, I don't think it was visual similarity, more the idea of her haunting X. I'd love to have a present times series dealing with her mental issues and traumas, how they still haunt her, how is she dealing with them.

It's not bad series, we have many flashbacks, X's history. She is in character mostly, way better then her current era. But it does feel... unnecessary? Like nothing will come out of it in her future, just one of adventures like more of them.
But I have no idea how with only one issue left it will be a satisfying story.

[Ambaryerno]

The biggest problem with this series is, that in this issue I felt like prologue just finished and main series is starting. And yet, we only have one issue left. I do enjoy art and flashback series, but it would be way better with 10 issue series, not 5.

It was indeed great to see Kiden again, I'd love to see her reunion with Laura and how she feels about Krakoa. Even if her powers are off visually. And yeah, I feel like Kimura plays a game with Laura due to her being off limits with Kingpin.
It's interesting that this series are going on now, when Kingpin is on Krakoa. It feels like the great opportunity for them to meet again, in present times, so of course it won't happen, not with one Laura being in X-Force and other being Synchs girlfriend.

As for scientist, I don't think it was visual similarity, more the idea of her haunting X. I'd love to have a present times series dealing with her mental issues and traumas, how they still haunt her, how is she dealing with them.

It's not bad series, we have many flashbacks, X's history. She is in character mostly, way better then her current era. But it does feel... unnecessary? Like nothing will come out of it in her future, just one of adventures like more of them.
But I have no idea how with only one issue left it will be a satisfying story.

Was it only 5 issues? I thought it was 6.

[Malachi]

Was it only 5 issues? I thought it was 6.

It's 5 issues. I think all of the current batch of mini's are 5 issues.

I will read this in TPB. I think I will enjoy it more when it's collected.

[Thievery]

The comic does a good job of getting Laura's personality down, at least in my opinion.

It seems to me that Marvel is doing a flash back mini with Laura to appeal to readers who are nostalgic for how Laura Kinney was written earlier in her comics existence. Maybe Marvel itself would like to get Laura back to being that version of the character and wish that they hadn't moved her into the direction that Tom Taylor took her in during his time writing All New Wolverine. Or maybe Marvel just needs to publish a comic series with the X-23 name on it to maintain copy rights and trademark ownership of the X-23 name.

It was mentioned earlier in this thread that Laura lacks a good Rouges gallery. Her stories keep trying to use Kimura and Kingpin. I was hoping that Haymaker could be useful in this spot, but they have been kind of underwhelming. Maybe it's just time to resurrect Kimura in the present instead of only using her in flash back stories. I'm not saying over use her, but she is defenetely Laura's best villain. Bringing her back to life so that she can be used in new stories going forward might lend some weight to her battles with Laura. Keeping her stuck in flash back stories just means that she isn't going to do anything that has any lasting consequences. Just my opinion.

[Ambaryerno]

The comic does a good job of getting Laura's personality down, at least in my opinion.

It seems to me that Marvel is doing a flash back mini with Laura to appeal to readers who are nostalgic for how Laura Kinney was written earlier in her comics existence. Maybe Marvel itself would like to get Laura back to being that version of the character and wish that they hadn't moved her into the direction that Tom Taylor took her in during his time writing All New Wolverine. Or maybe Marvel just needs to publish a comic series with the X-23 name on it to maintain copy rights and trademark ownership of the X-23 name.

It was mentioned earlier in this thread that Laura lacks a good Rouges gallery. Her stories keep trying to use Kimura and Kingpin. I was hoping that Haymaker could be useful in this spot, but they have been kind of underwhelming. Maybe it's just time to resurrect Kimura in the present instead of only using her in flash back stories. I'm not saying over use her, but she is defenetely Laura's best villain. Bringing her back to life so that she can be used in new stories going forward might lend some weight to her battles with Laura. Keeping her stuck in flash back stories just means that she isn't going to do anything that has any lasting consequences. Just my opinion.

This is the first time we’ve seen Laura have to deal with Fisk since Target X. The problem is that she HASNT had a run-in with him in the present day, even though she was set up for it.

And the problem with Laura today has little to do with Taylor’s run. It’s that writers just keeping using her as a substitute Logan right down to giving her his personality. They took the crap from Hopeless where she was acting like Logan as a conscious choice (stupid choice as it was) and ignored the part that it was Laura acting out, instead taking it as her ACTUAL personality.